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Time for Plan B on Chapter 12, Page 9 as Vivienne storms off to talk to Jassart. Didn’t Dad tell her not to see him anymore? And we all know that teenagers always do exactly what their parents tell them to do…

Jassart looks so disingenuous when he says “our love.” Although, Jassart looks disingenuous no matter what he does.

I dunno, I kind of feel like Vivienne is the sort of noblewoman who could make even an arranged marriage work to her advantage. She strikes me as the sort who’d be good at getting her husband to do things or allow things by making him think they were his idea. Or by getting to know her husband’s family’s political connections and pooling them with her own connections to get stuff done. I don’t feel like Viv is the sort to let marriage relegate her to “mundane responsibilities” or to interfere with her adventures and relationship with Jassart. She’s too strong and too smart to let this hold her back, and she knows it. I suspect she’s getting all teary-eyed to mess with Jass.

The thing is, though, an arranged marriage would likely be to an aristocrat back in the old world to secure funding for the war effort. It’s hard to have adventures when you’re literally a world away from the source of the action.

Hmm a suitable suitor of relatively the same age group that would be a boost to their family’s status, someone who that mask holds a great deal of sway over who is still Alive, their war effort, and their settlement…. *Snorts she’s going to be ending up with Defiant Elk.

I have to admit, I’m really confused as to what role women have in Aradie. Obviously they can’t vote, but neither can anyone else. The nobles, at least, do not have the freedom to choose who they marry — just like the IRL equivalent. (There aren’t many advantages to being a pre-Modern plebeian, but sexual freedom is one of them. No one cared who Peasant #45464653 chose as a husband.) But they also are allowed and encouraged to fight, to use weapons, and even to serve in the military. There are still modern, mostly egalitarian societies where that is discouraged or outright prohibited. Help meeeee.

Aradie is a colony of Saronne which has a patron goddess who are served by a mostly female clergy. So I decided that the overt sexism of baroque Europe would be greatly diminished because of Giavere’s cultural influence. Classism would remain firmly in place though. So female nobles have all the rights and obligations of male nobles in Saronne. That would include getting married and having children to continue the line — especially if you were an only child.